Life After Death?

This is a Non-Fiction short story from my childhood. Every word of it is true. This is my evidence, their is more to life then death.

When I was fourteen years old my mother, her husband (Jon), and I would often go fishing in Nicholasville. One day on our way to our usual spot we noticed a house the appeared abandoned. The windows were all broken out, with drapes flowing out of them just like in a scary movie. It was a large, white, old, farm house with a barn around back. The paint was chipping off the wood and the house was covered in corrosion. The grass was over grown up to my waist. Our curiosity led us to the back door which appeared kicked in.
As we entered the house through the kicked in door, I was shocked when I saw that there was a mattress laying in the middle of the kitchen, then I noticed a pack of Marlboro red’s on the kitchen table. This pack of Marlboro’s was dated back more than ten years. That's when it hit me, this house was fully furnished, it even still had rotting food in the cabinets. I was overcome with a eerie cold feeling. It reeked of cow manure and decomposing food. When I got to the hallway I noticed that you would be able to see directly into the basement of the house through the rotting old wood floor if not for its darkness. My instincts told me that something horrible had happened here, this house had an unforgettable atmosphere. As we made our way down the hallway carefully avoiding the holes in the floor, I noticed family photos arranged on the walls in a homely fashion. The family appeared to be young,and happy. There were photos of a man, a woman, and their son. There were several little league photos of the young boy posing with his baseball bat. By the look of the young boy's uniform I would have guessed these photos to have been taken sometime in the 80's. At the end of the hallway was a large, heavy looking wooden door which was slightly cracked open. I was first, then Jon, then my mother, As I pushed the door open I saw what used to be the master bedroom where the couple had once slept. Before I even had the door all the way open my mother said "wow, look at that dresser, it is beautiful." As I looked at the dresser I was hit with a bit of confusion, It appeared to be a very old, beaten up dresser which I personally found no beauty. It was obviously used by the lady as a place to sit and do her make-up. It had an oval mirror attached to it at one time, but now it was only a frame. The mirror had been broken out. "This is an antique" my mother exclaimed. with all of our focus on my mothers infatuation with this piece of crap dresser, I realized that I hadn't even glanced at the rest of the room. Soon as I turned my head I saw something that to this day still fills my heart with so many questions. There sit what used to be the couples bed. At one time this was a water bed, but all of the water had leaked out of it, this might of had something to do with the rotting wooden floors in the hallway. On top of the bed was a pile of fuzz, or was it fuzz? I took a second look, There seamed to be tiny little bones within the fuzz, I stepped back to view the object at question, thats when it hit me, It was the remains of a cat. This was defiantly the most disgusting thing I had ever seen. From the rest of the house I had already concluded that this family probably had to leave town in a huge hurry. The house was completely furnished, They even still had clothes in their closet's, But their cat? I think that in that very same moment when I realized what the cat was, I also came to a realization that something far worse had probably happened to this family other then having to leave town in a hurry. The cat appeared to have curled up on the drained, rotten water bed and died peacefully, possibly of starvation. Maybe the water bed even still had water in it at the time, who knows. As I re-entered the hallway, my mind raced with an odd mix of adrenaline and curiosity. What had happened here? Was this family murdered? If so then why would their loved ones not take care of their things? Nothing seamed to make any sense as we all looked at each other with complete confusion.
As my mother and Jon snooped around the bedroom, I decided to take a peak upstairs. As I walked up the stairs I remember feeling like I was not alone, even though I had left the company of my mother and Jon, I somehow felt a disturbing presence. This possibly could have been my imagination running away with the fact that I already felt like something horrible had happened in this house, but it felt very real in that moment. The stairs were in as poor of condition of the rest of the house, as I walked up them they bowed and creaked as if they might give in at any moment. When I reached the top of the stairs I couldn't help but notice a large pile of cow manure sitting right in the middle of the floor. This explained why the house reeked of shit, but only to propose an even more disturbing question, How the hell could a cow have ever managed to get up these stairs? I only weighed about 100 pounds at the time and I was not even sure if those stairs would support me, much less a cow! The second floor of the house was composed of two bedrooms, and a bathroom, The bathroom looked like something you would find at your grandparents house, with old flower designed wall paper, and the ugliest shades of green and yellow imaginable. The first bedroom I found myself in appeared as if it might of been an office of some sort. I remember a large desk in the corner of the room, and on the opposite end of the room was an old record player with a few filing cabinets on each side of it. I wish that I had been a tad more nosy at the time, so that I would have opened those failing cabinets, and perhaps figured out who this family was. I was to anxious, I had to see what was in the other room. The door was shut, wedged shut. I turned the knob and gave it a good solid kick, this must have been the little boys room. There was a few little league trophy's on a dresser beside the closet, a filthy twin size bed wedged in the far corner of the room, and more photos of the boy hanging on the wall. I opened the closet to find a few small t-shirts still hanging on hangers, and some toys on the floor as if they were crammed in there as a typical child would have done when cleaning his room. Suddenly I felt very anxious, where is my mother? where is Jon? How long have I been up here? I ran out of the bedroom only slowing down to avoid crashing through the stairs. They were back in the kitchen. I opened the fridge in some bazaar hope of finding a cold beverage. what was I thinking? There was food in the fridge, rotten food, and the fridge wasn't even on. In fact there was no power in the whole house. "you guys still want to go fishing?" I asked. That was my way of saying I think it is time to leave.

The next few days were kind of strange. I could not get that family out of my head. What had happened to them? Who were they? I couldn't think about anything else. Ever since we had left the house we oddly enough hadn't talked about it with each other. I think we were all kind of freaked out and just didn't really know what to say about it. I had to bring this up again. I went to my mom, " so what do you think happened in the house mom?" I asked her. "I don't know but I really am considering going to get that dresser." she replied. Come to find out she had been obsessing over the old broken dresser from the master bedroom. "I cant believe I didn't take it while we were there." I was very confused, after all I saw no beauty in the dresser, and I was pretty sure that would be considered stealing. It just seamed wrong. While I was worried about what had happened to the family, my mother was more concerned about what would come of their dresser? To benefit from someone else's misfortune? At first the idea felt flat out wrong. A few more days went by and my mother seamed to get more and more obsessive over this piece of furniture. She seamed incomplete without it, she just wasn't the same person. There are numerous things I do not understand about my mothers emotions but one thing I understood at the time was that if my mother wasn't happy, no one was. I think Jon had finally had enough, and gave in. "why don't we just go get it today?" he suggested. I thought about it, trying to weigh my morals against my family's happiness. "Well, I mean its not like they are going to be using it right?" I finally uttered. "Ok then its settled, lets go." My mom replied.

I have to admit, going back in that house a second time did not seam at all like a good idea, but I was after all, only fourteen years old. If this was the wrong thing to do, then it is my parents job to decide, right? At least thats what I told myself as Jon and I re-entered the back door of the house to make myself feel better about the situation. My mother waited in the car this time, she wouldn't be any help carrying the dresser anyways. We poked our heads in the kitchen, already on a very high alert. We were in stealth mode, trying to be as quite as possible. The second we were both completely in the kitchen I heard a noise. I looked at Jon, He was looking back at me as if to say he heard the noise to. Then again, It was whispering, and it sounded like it was coming from upstairs. Very loud, but not clear, whispering, It did not sound human, by that I mean It sounded like it surrounded us, Like the sound came from all angles. We both looked down the hallway that led to the stairs, then back at each other. Jon's eyes were huge, he defiantly herd the same thing I did. When our eyes met, we heard another noise from upstairs. It sounded like someone ran in full sprint from one side of the house to the other, but abnormally fast. It was almost a shuffling sound but very distinct. We decided to make a break for the dresser so that we could get the hell out of this house as fast as possible. And thats exactly what we did. We came out of the house, both carrying one end of the dresser. She took one look at our faces and asked what was wrong. Neither of us wanted to even try to explain what happened in there, I think its because we weren't even sure for ourselves.

We arrived home at last, I was very relived that our mission was a success and we had gotten the dresser out safely. Maybe now my mom could go back to being her old self. We hauled the dresser inside and placed it neatly inside my mothers bedroom. We rented a few video's that night and curled up as a family, to just relax. AAACHUE! we all looked at each other. Then again AAACHUE! It was coming from down the hallway, where my mothers room was. My whole family was in the living room with me, yet someone was sneezing from the other side of the house. We came to no conclusion, and continued to watch our movie, only slightly alarmed. WAAAHAAAA! A child crying? WAAAHAAA! Yes defiantly a child crying, we all looked at each other. I was laying in the living room floor, closest to my mothers bedroom. "It came from your room mom." I was way to scared to go take a look myself. Our hallway was pitch black, we kept all our bedroom doors closed. Jon decided to go take a look, nothing. There was nobody there. Just the dresser.

The next night my best friend Brian stayed the night with me while my mother and Jon went out for the night. We were playing video games and listening to the radio when all of the sudden, WESLEEEY! Someone called my name. I turned down the music, "mom?" I looked in the driveway, she was not home. "strange, I heard it to." said Brian. I turned the music back up and we went back to our regular video game playing. Again WEEEESLEY! " What the fuck!" Brian screamed. "Are u messing with me man?" he asked. By the look on my face I think he could tell that I was not messing with him. Thats when I told him the whole story about the house, the family, and the dresser. We went into the kitchen to get a drink, bling! what? We both turned and looked right at Jon's acoustic guitar. He kept it in the corner of the living room for easy access. " I swear to God I am not messing with u man, did u hear that guitar, It just strummed itself" he believed me. It wasn't as if someone had just hit it, it was a slow strum which let each note ring to its potential. This made it more frightening. Someone or something was defiantly messing with us, there was no doubt in either of our minds. We decided to arm ourselves, I grabbed a baseball bat from my brothers room. We took a seat on the couch, scared. It was silent. From the couch we had a Direct view down the hallway which contained no light. At the end of the hallway my mother kept a chest which held many of our family photo's. Brian hit me in the arm, to get my attention, and pointed to the chest. There was a perfect circle of glowing light focused on my picture, lighting it up as if to put my face in the spotlight. Realizing that every door in that hallway was shut, and there was no possible way for any light to get in that particular spot, we ran out of the house as fast as we could. Needless to say we spent the rest of the night at Brian's.

Over the next few day's many strange things happened to everyone in my house, things would be out of there places, and we continued to hear children noises coming from my mothers room. My entire family became fully convinced that this dresser had some sort of negative energy following it. We did not understand what it was, but one thing we did know was that we wanted nothing to do with it. We threw the dresser in our shed around back, in hopes that we could later just sell it to an antique shop. That lasted only until the night I came home late and had to put my bike away, in the shed. I had a pretty big backyard, and the shed sat all the way in the back, so it was pretty dark. I opened up the shed door, and there was the dresser. That is when I saw as plane as day, the perfect silhouette of a little boy's shadow. From the shadow I would have guessed him to be about the same age as the boy from the pictures in the house. So I ran inside, leaving my bike in the yard. I told my mother what happened, and she believed me. We were done, we could not wait to take it to an antique shop, we simply rolled it across the street for the garbage man to dispose of.

The next mourning I was walking by the window and I could not help but notice an old couple loading the dresser in their van. They each had huge smiles on their face's, they looked as if they had just found gold, or won the lottery. They were to far away for me to warn them in time, it was simply out of my control. The dresser's beauty had possessed them.